You can all go ahead and blame my son for this one. Having an almost-4-year old around means you get exposed to quite a lot of children's TV, and a lot of these presenters are just too damn cute. Add to that the fact that Gabriel would be just fucking perfect hosting a kid's show, and voila! Brand spankin' new AU was born! And FYI, I lean heavily on brain-searing stuff like Lazy Town for inspiration. Fair warning.

Notes: The plot started out as just a vague "wow, I'd love to see Gabriel host a kid's show" but before I knew it an actual plot took shape. The setup I'm most set on right now (I have several plot options for this), is the idea that Gabriel was originally a chef or something, but was sort of half-forced to join the family business of making family friendly (and Bible-compliant) TV. One of Gabe's brothers (right now I'm thinking Michael) hosts a kid's show (I was thinking a dulled down version of Lazy Town here) and decides that to boost ratings, what his show needs is a villain. Gabriel signs on to become The Trickster, a thoughtless, somewhat mean, scheming antagonist that the host can bounce his educational plots off of. Only problem is that in record time, The Trickster becomes the most popular character of the entire fucking network, even under the thumb of the bible-bashing goodie-two-shoes story-lines which wasn't really all that entertaining in Gabriel's opinion. So he decides that The Trickster needs his own show. The entire network has an aneurysm over this, and cuts Gabriel (and The Trickster) off completely. Gabriel tells them all to fuck off and starts up on his own. Trickster Time is born. And takes off like a fucking rocket.

I sort of want it to be Sam/Gabriel, but it might end up being only vague pre-slash, because I'm entirely too focused on Gabriel's story here.

As I mentioned in my new year's word count, I've been posting stuff on tumblr quite a bit. This is because I feel no urge to do things properly on a site I am pretty much exclusively using for instant fandom gratification. It's not my main blog. It's where I blurt out random stuff and even more random fic. However, some of them turned out okay, and after a trip to a beta they should be ready to post here and on AO3. So I've roped in my ever faithful betas to go through all the junk and help me make it decent enough to post with headers and everything.

I hope to start posting within the next few days, or next week at the latest. I already have a few things ready to post, but I also have an exuberant 3-year old, so there's no telling what kind of time I may or may not have.

Oh, and I have also dipped my toe into a new fandom: Person Of Interest. My god, I ship Reese/Finch SO hard! I kinda sorta already wrote them a ficlet... ahem. Anyway, that should also make an appearance, along with fanart-inspired smut, weird au ficlets, drabbles and gen things nobody seems to want to read. But if the writing is decent enough, it deserves the effort of giving them headers and crossposting. So there.

Only counting things I've actually posted as "complete" but not necessarily betaed or anything. Tumblr in particular has gotten a lot of little random fics thrown at it which I felt too lazy to format and post properly to LJ. I hope to get around to it next year. I'm also not counting what might well be around 50k of RP-ing through the year. The words have truly flowed from me this year, as harsh as it's felt.

In regards to the Pea situation, all I'm gonna say is that denial is a beautiful thing. Everything is set in motion, so there's nothing more I can really do other than worry myself silly. So I'm making extreme effort to not think about it. At all.

To help with this, I downloaded all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and started a marathon. Not even kidding. I started watching only a couple of weeks ago and I'm already several episodes into season 5.

I'm not all that into it, to be honest, but it's decent entertainment and distracts me nicely. The first 2 seasons made me constantly roll my eyes because it was so silly, but I sternly reminded myself that first seasons are often like that. (TNG season 1, oh boy...)

Other stuff that keeps my mind off dangerous topics is smut. Not that smut isn't an awfully nice thing in general, but it seems my brain takes comfort in pushing the limits of my normal kinks. I'm delving into BDSM and watersports fics, and I'm frankly disappointed at how little there is of this in the SPN fandom, even on the kink meme (which is usually so scary to me that I hardly dare look at it. Bestiality, man... *shudder*). Guess I'll have to write what I want myself. I already did, actually.

I was feeling horribly down and in desperate need of some nice feedback, so I went back to what works (since my Dog Walker fic is getting a very lukewarm response) and posted a D/s smut thing I found in my folders. I posted a hesitant first part on tumblr and the response was overwhelming, so before I knew it I'd written almost 4k of sabriel D/s, powered by huge amounts of notes. It's here, if anyone wants to read it. Some day I'll probably have it betaed and posted properly, but for now I'm drowning in the moving process, so it'll have to wait.

Speaking of the moving process, there are ups and downs. It's fucking complicated and stressful, but it's going steadily ahead and 9 days from now, I'll have a new home. I got a moving company at a great price, got the loan for my deposit and all I need now is the key to my new place. Should hear from the leasers about signing the lease sometime this week, and I hope to get the keys at the same time.

Being in the Supernatural fandom has made me feel again. I'm not even kidding.

A couple of years ago I often found myself wondering if I would ever feel anything but misery ever again. Occasionally I wondered if I was feeling anything at all. Everything was so muted at times I honestly couldn't tell. Even if I was crying, it all seemed so pointless.

Then somewhere along this past year... something happened.

I remember squealing out loud when SPN episode 7x17 rolled around. I was so excited about Castiel's return that I made actual noise. Loud noise. My heart was pounding and my chest was heaving. I felt all the physical responses prompted by an emotional surge.

The only other time I can remember feeling like that in the last 10 years was the first time I was pregnant. After I lost the first one, the second one was laced with so much terror that I never got that joy again.

And just now, a stupid 3 minute web clip of the upcoming first episode of season 8 gave me the same overwhelming emotional outbursts again.

Back in the day when I discovered DS9 and the joys of Garak/Bashir, I managed to find and read pretty much every fic still available on the web in just about a year's time. Of course, every now and then something would crop up that I somehow missed, or someone would write something new, but it was pretty rare with months in between.

So I got it in my head that I would be able to gather sort of an archive of Garak/Bashir fics. Just links, making it easier to look for and share fics with my fellow Garak/Bashir fans.

Had things stayed like they were then, I might have been able to pull it off, but several factors have now finally forced me to admit that it was a way too ambitious project for me.

First of all, I should have been self-aware enough to realize that other fandoms would arrive and take some of my time. I'm still a major Garak/Bashir fan, and I could probably singlehandedly run a G/B ficfinder blog if anyone actually needed something like that. But most of my energy lies elsewhere these days, both in my personal life and in other fandoms.

And then of course there's the glorious fact that Garak/Bashir isn't nearly as dead as I'd thought. New fics seem to be written almost weekly these days, and while that makes me very happy, it also means that my hopes of keeping up with the influx of new fics (and the constant changing of links and closing of pages in the internet) pretty much impossible.

I'm going to leave them open for a while, in case someone wants to take over the projects, but I doubt it. Instead, I think I will make it a sticky post on my journal (and maybe even on the garakbashirfics too) that anyone interested can have my entire folder of saved fics sent to them. I try to save pretty much every G/B fic I've ever read, so while the search option will have to be abandoned, the material is still available.

I've been pondering what I ship. Or rather, what tends to attract me to any sort of ship.

First of all, I'm an avid slasher, so off the bat I'm generally more enthusiastic about the male/male ships. But I think I've finally nailed my major point of attraction to any ship.

Reluctance. Be it clashing of personalities, status, race, breed, culture, whatever. If the parties involved are facing obstacles and yet gravitating towards each other, I'm almost always interested. The characters have to be really unappealing for me to not care at all. Not that I ship everything to the same degree, but my enthusiasm pretty much dies when the ship is all smooth sailing.

Occasionally there are exceptions. The most notable one being Bones/Booth. Not that I was into that fandom a lot, but when the couple became canon I quit. Despite the fact that for all appearances, the ship had anything I needed to love it. They were wildly different characters, both fairly likable, who butted heads frequently but still bonded. They should have appealed to me. But making them a couple pretty much killed the show for me. Bah.

Come to think of it, many of the couples I ship I wouldn't actually like to be canon. The premise of the shows I love aren't normally romance, so my romantic fantasies usually fit much better in fanfic, especially when the ship is between two major characters. (Let's not discuss the pairings that I ship just because they're hot. That's a whole other topic.)

This might make me seem like a bit of a hypocrite to some, but I don't care. My shipping habits are strange and unpredictable, but I have a hell of a lot of fun with them. :)

Comment to this post, and I will list seven things I want you to talk about. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

Supernatural:Actually, if I weren't such a rabid shipper/pervert, I doubt I'd even like this show. I'm not all that into the early seasons. I find them mostly boring and too cheesy. I'm much more invested in the seasons that include the angels. But even so, there is too much gore, all the female characters are killed or treated like shit (or both) and so many of the episodes make me cringe from second-hand embarrassment. That said, the cast is amazing, the actors are really fucking talented and there are some really great episodes, especially in the angel story arcs. So I watch for the slash, basically. And Richard Speight Jr. God, I wish he could come back on the show somehow.

Favorite character:This is kinda vague, but that's okay, since I really suck at picking just one favorite, even in separate fandoms. But my favorites include: Elim Garak, Data, The Archangel Gabriel, Castiel, Leeroy Jethro Gibbs, Benton Fraser, Merlin, Nightcrawler, Toad, Sherlock Holmes, Elizabeth Bennet, Bruce Wayne/Batman and many more. Clearly, what makes a character a favorite of mine is not a fixed recipe. It can be anything from a pleasing voice to a feeling of kinship or something as shallow as a hot body. (Oh, hi there, Mr. Darcy. Unf.)Food you can't live without:In reality, I think I could live without any type of food. My diet has always been changing, sometimes over a period of several years, but I cannot think of a single thing I would miss horribly for very long if I had to go without. I'd probably miss meat an awful lot, but if I could have bread and potatoes, I'm pretty sure I'd get over it. Cola would be rough to give up too, but I've gone long periods without, due to money troubles or just for the heck of it. So I dunno.

If you could live anywhere, were would that be:I like my country an awful lot, so I doubt I'd ever leave Denmark. But I would very much like to move out of the city, perhaps to an old farm or something, surrounded by fields and open spaces and bright stars. I'd love that. Maybe some day.

Life as a fangirl:It seems to be the only thing that keeps me from going insane, so I indulge myself as much as I possibly can. When terror grips me and the world outside seems full of danger, it soothes my mind to delve into fanfic or some silly TV show, even if all it does is make me forget the world for a while. Living in a brain constantly in a state of emergency has taught me the value of escapism like nothing else could. I used to see my tendency for diving into fantasy as something undesirable and inconvenient, but as things are now, it's something I truly could not do without.

Youtube vid:I'm going to interpret this as a request for a vid. So here's one. For some reason it never fails to cheer me up. :o)

Favorite artwork:Gosh, so many favorites. But one that springs to mind immediately is this one: Out of the Cage by NaSyu. It's just so beautiful and it's pretty much the perfect illustration of my mind's version of The Archangel Gabriel as he is in SPN. Totally badass angel. Yessss. *makes grabby hands*

There's next to nothing fandom related going on either on Dreamwidth or Livejournal these days. At least not on my f-list or the communities I frequent. There are some fics being posted, but almost all of them are WIPs, and I just can't read WIPs. Especially not several at a time. It's a mixed problem on my part. I'm so very tempted to read everything, but I get confused too easily and goddammit, if the writing is really good, then the mere idea of the WIP never reaching an ending upsets me to the point of being unreasonable about it. So I prefer to wait it out.

So these days I mostly stick to Tumblr. My Supernatural cravings in particular are being sated there. But wow, I clearly do not take it as seriously as most of my followers/followed do. I don't see it as a serious blog at all, not for me. I'm still having difficulties posting stuff there and the search engine went suddenly from being awesome to impossible. Not sure how or when. :oS I don't really understand the point of the questions and fanmail (isn't it what we do with memes on LJ? Is it something to do with the word limit on asks? I dunno.) or indeed the desperation some people seem to exhibit when requesting it. I hate not being able to leave longer comments on things and reblogging the same post for every single reply in a lengthy debate is just hurting my eyes and my scroll finger in the end.

But it seems to be where everything happens these days. And I do adore gifs to an unhealthy degree. And I seem to have gotten myself a Tumblr wife. Whaddya know. :oP

Apart from that, I sort of half-heartedly check Twitter every now and then. If I'm lucky, I can find a couple of people to IM with a few hours every night. And that's pretty much the extent of my social life. Which I suppose is why I fill my head with fannish pursuits.

Writing:

I joined a birthday fic challenge on a whim and chose a tiny prompt, because I hoped it would be a nice little thing to boost my writing mojo. Of course, it just had to turn into a 10k word monster, which I was seriously worried wouldn't be finished in time. But only last night I managed to reach an ending, and while it's not my best fic ever, I actually think it turned out very well. I do so hope the recipient likes it. :o)

Tumblr also has a Sabriel (Sam/Gabriel) week coming up and I would really like to offer something daily for it. Not sure what it would be, though. Writing would be the immediate choice, but graphics could also be fun. Haven't fiddled with my dear photoshop in ages. But I guess it all depends on energy, time and inspiration. It's from April 1st to April 8th, so I've got a little time to decide, yet. It's perfect, though, because the birthday fic is Sam/Gabriel and is due on the 7th of April. :oP

As usual I have a bazillion WIPs in my folders and I can't seem to focus on one at a time. Most of my writing this year has actually been done in my RP with martiya_khvar , but I'm doubtful any of that writing will actually interest anybody else. Except maybe the sex scenes. I dunno. Would any SPN fans on my F-list like to read an awful lot of Crowley/OMC sex? Because that's pretty much all that's going on. Best RP ever. :oP

Other stuff:

My embroidery project has pretty much screeched to a halt with all the stressing over all the people and stuff going on in my life, but I have a year before it's needed, since I'm told there's no plans for any sort of baptism or naming ceremony. So the plan is to make the picture a 1-year birthday gift for the baby. I can also report that even though I managed to make an incredibly big fuck-up, I also managed to fix it without panicking. Go me.

My other fannish pursuits involves reading an awful lot of fic. Right now I'm craving smutty Merlin/Arthur or Bradley/Colin fic. Thank god for the kinkmeme. :oP I've also dipped my toe into SPN RPS. I've read a little of everything by now, I think, but weirdly, the only pairing that truly appeals to me in that area is Misha/Jared. I'm not entirely sure why. I just like them together. And it's absolutely no problem for me to have Misha/Jared smut open in one tab and squee over Jared and Gen's baby in another. I'm easy like that.

And while we're on the subject of SPN...

TV: (No real spoilers here.)

SPN: CAAAAAAASSSSSS!!!! OH MY FREAKIN' GOD!! After all the angsting and expecting the worst from Castiel's return episode, we were instead gifted with PURE GOLD! I made so many strange noises I hope my neighbours don't end up thinking some exotic animals are breeding in here. When the trench coat appeared, I fear I may have made a noise not unlike a penguin being strangled. And there are at least 2 more episodes to come!! *runs around flailing arms*

Everything else seems to pale compared to SPN, actually... But in short:

Community got renewed. Yay!NCIS is good as always.Castle is going down a notch in my estimation for every episode where the Castle/Beckett part is being ignored. CSI Miami is now finally behind me. Cannot bear it anymore. *sob*Fringe is kinda breaking my heart along with my brain. I'm very conflicted about my feelings on this matter, but I'm still totally hooked.H50 is being entertaining, but unimpressive. Thankfully there is slash. So much beautiful Danny/Steve.

When I tell people that I'm obsessed with something new (or old), they tend to assume that I treat all my obsessions the same. But I don't. And I honestly can't tell you why. Weirdly, every fandom appeals to me differently.

Example:

NCIS. I watch every episode religiously and enjoy every re-run. I know all the characters, I love them and get involved in their stories. Heck, I even bought merchandise. But I feel no need to buy the DVDs, read/write fanfic or otherwise get involved in fandom. I don't care about news about the actors, gossip, plot debates... nothing. I enjoy it purely for its entertainment value.

In comparison:

Supernatural. I watch, read, write, chat, browse and basically eat up every scrap of news available, even to the point of making myself uncomfortable. I read as much fanfic about my ships as I can possibly manage and it's some sort of miracle that I've so far managed to steer clear of any ship wars.

In between these two extremes there are a multitude of gray areas. Some fandoms will only inspire me to read about a single paring, while never watching the series itself again. Others will be the kind I can rewatch endlessly but feel no need to read or write about.

This... was supposed to be a lot longer, but I seem to have run out of steam.

Here is my final word count for 2011. I'm only including finished fics, so the real word count could be as much as 10k higher. But since I also managed to finish a few older fics, I'm just gonna assume it evens out in the end.

Jan:Unacknowledged Favours: 2376Just the Way He Was: 645In Which there is...: 728Unchallenged: 693Tender Secret: 270A Fistful of Garaks: 2086

March:Dear Self: 614

May:Color me Stupid: 775

Sep:Natural Decline...: 2363

Oct: (Yes, this is what happens when you go off meds and find a new fandom!)This Next Song is for You...: 1772Stepping Into Starlight: 546On These Borrowed Wings I Fly to You: 1798Like All the Years to Come: 847See You on the Flip Side: 1402Through the Window I Watched: 744Finding Heat: 1331Bump My Fender: 1312Spectacles: 556(Not Posted) In Another Life It Could Happen to You: 3206(Not Posted) The Grooves on Your Face: 641(Not Posted) A Night to Remember: 3078

1. The first character I fell in love with:2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t:4. The character I love that everyone else hates:5. The character I would shag anytime:6. The character I’d want to be like:7. The character I’d slap:8. Favorite character:9. Who are your five favorite characters?10. Who are your five least favorite characters?11. Which character are you most like?12. What is your deep, dark secret regarding this?13. A pairing that I love:14. A pairing that I despise:

First of all, I totally forgot I asked for fic OR art, so opening the link and seeing... this was quite the shocker. And once I was doing flailing and choking on my own spit I went on and wrote what I suspect will be a mildly embarrassing comment to who ever the fantastically dirty soul was who came up with this.

When I grew up there was an explosion of media attention on the horrors of pedophilia and child molesters. It was taken to such extremes that most adults ended up being so afraid of being accused of anything untoward, that they hardly even dared touch their own kids.

So I've endured more than a few stares on account on kissing my mother, full on the mouth, every day. Quite publicly. Because that's what we've always done. My own son recently discovered the concept of kissing and if my baby boy wants a kiss on the lips, then by god, I am going to give him one. (Complete with snot and drool. Oh well.)

Thing is, the attention on this topic in my everyday life made me aware of the boundaries in family relations on screen. Physical contact is okay. Kisses? Apparently not so much.